The bond between man and dog is such a weird one, and it's a difficult task to recognize the fundamental strangeful of our instinct to anthropomorphize while accepting its necessity.
I think its important to remember that dogs have been effectively created by man over the centuries to
be anthropomorphized animals. More so than any other species, dogs can relate to us and we can tell a great deal about them. There is an extravagant romanticism of that bond in the popular consciousness, but fundamentally when I am feeling down my dog can tell and she behaves in a way that I find comforting. If I had a pet pot-bellied pig, despite its superior intelligence, it wouldn't be able to respond as appropriately as a dog. There was a great episode of Cosmos about the relationship between human and dog that goes into a lot of the ways that they have adapted to their companion role.